"Mischief" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will say, how the mischief is it that Tartarin of Tarascon never left Tarascon, with all this mania for adventure, need of powerful sensations, and folly about travel, rides, and journeys from the Pole ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... disposed to admit Rollo's authority to set him right by violence. He resisted; and, in the struggle, the table was pushed away, and the water in the saucer spilled over. The water ran along under the sheet of paper. Nathan, seeing the mischief that had been done, was a little frightened, and released his hold. Rollo then took up the paper, which had sand upon the upper side, and water dripping off from the under ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... this Mischief, I must stay here to be entertain'd with your Catterwauling, Mrs. Puss!—Out of my Sight, wanton Strumpet! you shall fast and mortify yourself into Reason, with now and then a little handsom Discipline to bring you to ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... more sense and not talk so much, and not say what I think about people, and not hate my ugly clothes so, and despise the smell of onions and cabbage and soap-suds, I might get more answers, but you can't get answers just by praying. You've got to work like the mischief, and be a regular policeman over yourself and nab the bad things the minute they poke their heads out. If I'd prayed differently yesterday I wouldn't have been looking for—for somebody all to-day, and be a jumping-jack to-night for ...
— How It Happened • Kate Langley Bosher
... and among the rocks and sandhills of the desert. Shooting stars are still believed by the people of the East to be arrows shot by the angels against the genii, who transgress these limits and approach too near the forbidden regions of bliss. Many of the genii delight in mischief; they surprise and mislead travelers, raise whirlwinds, and dry up springs in the desert. The Ghoul lives on the flesh of men and women, whom he decoys to his haunts in wild and barren places, in order to kill and devour them, and when he cannot thus obtain ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... one day. "Matt's been getting into mischief. I know the symptoms well. He can't look me in the face, and every now and then, when he fancies my attention is attracted elsewhere, I catch him peeping furtively at me as if he were frightened out of his life I should ferret out some secret. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... sulphur. It is also the most mischievous of Australian birds, and not only plays sad havoc amongst the wheat when ripe, but soon clears a field that has been sown. They are in immense flocks, and when in mischief always have sentinels at some prominent point to prevent their being taken by surprise, and signify the approach of a foe by a loud scream. They build in the hollows of trees, and in vast numbers in the Murray cliffs, making them ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... crime should be commensurate with, and, as it were, symbolise its moral enormity,—there can be no doubt but that in the present case the criminal received only what he deserved. Few men ever did worse mischief to society in their day, than Arnold of Brescia. Private ambition was his ruling passion, and his hopes of gratifying it were set on the realization of dreams and fancies, engendered of an unbridled imagination, which an admixture of mysticism further ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... told the story of the father's grief when he found that he must let Benjamin go down into Egypt, that they might buy a little food; how he spoke of his two sons, that were the sons of Rachel—that one had been torn in pieces, and now if mischief should befall the other, it would bring his gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. He asked Joseph what he should do when he returned to his father without the lad, seeing that his life was bound up in the lad's life, and Judah begged ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... with rage at the loss of his wand, for all his pleasure was to do harm and hurt. But when he came to himself he said: "One can do a good deal of harm with his tongue. I will turn mischief-maker; and when the place is too hot to hold me, I can escape in what ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... reflect, that, after refusing the pressing solicitations of my friends at Otaheite to favour their invasion of this island, I should so soon find myself reduced to the necessity of engaging in hostilities against its inhabitants, which, perhaps, did them more mischief than they had suffered ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... little cry, laughing out like a child caught in mischief, springing away. "I must practise being a boy," she exclaimed, "What is it you do? It is so different from being a Countess. One feels so free. No heels, no train, no veil! When one is used to the boots it must be heaven. If my cap ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... as simple as possible, but the mischief is that you do not meet with this very natural feeling. There are people who will show you the seed in the hollow of their hand, but even those who deal in this precious grain are the last to show you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... such a profound studying of German and Hebrew, Parkhurst and Jahn, and such other names as the memory aches to think of, on foot at Andover. Meantime, Unitarianism will not hide her honors; as many hard names are taken, and as much theological mischief is planned, at Cambridge as at Andover. By the time this generation gets upon the stage, if the controversy will not have ceased, it will run such a tide that we shall hardly he able to speak to one another, and there will be a Guelf and Ghibelline quarrel, which ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... a subject of vast importance to the community. There are evils also connected with it of alarming magnitude, and which all needful efforts should be made to remove. Especially should this subject attract the attention of parents. The mischief often begins with them and around their own hearths. How common it is for parents to make promises to their children, while the latter are yet tottering from chair to chair, which are never designed to be fulfilled. And, at length, the deception is discovered ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... had now begun to feel the effect of his drubbing more keenly, renewed his clamor, with the result that a half-dozen policemen appeared, causing Allan to retreat to a corner and mumble prayers. From their demeanor it looked as though they were really bent upon mischief, but Kirk soon saw that an official had come in answer to his call. He felt less reassured when he perceived that the person in uniform who now stepped forward was the same upon whom he had turned the ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... When David was a baby only a few months old, he lost the sight of one eye by inflammation resulting from a severe cold. When about three years old, he noiselessly followed his sister into the cellar one day, intending in a spirit of mischief to blow out the candle she was carrying. Just as he leaned over to do it, she, unconscious that he was there, raised up, thrusting the candle in her hand right into his eye. The little boy's cry of pain was the first warning of his presence. The eye was injured, but probably he would not entirely ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... across the land, invisible to all, unless perhaps where, in some more than commonly "gentle" place—Drumcliff or Drum-a-hair—the nightcapped heads of faery-doctors may be thrust from their doors to see what mischief the "gentry" are doing. To their trained eyes and ears the fields are covered by red-hatted riders, and the air is full of shrill voices—a sound like whistling, as an ancient Scottish seer has recorded, and wholly different from the talk of the angels, who "speak much in the throat, ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... shoiting in an' aat, An' gravel ratches wur abaat, An' th' folk, he sed thay little knew Wat mischief it began to brew. An' news he spread abaat the taan Wat lots o' rain wud tumble daan An' like his anshent sires he spoke The shockin news withaat ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... full of mischief and I'd tu'n de mules out of de lot, jus' to see de stableboy git a lickin'. One time I wanted a fiddle a white man named Cocoanut Harper kep' tryin' to sell me for $7.50. I didn' never have any money, 'cept a little the missie give me, so I kep' teasin' her to buy de fiddle for me. She was ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... Mr. Denzil, as I don't know, and I never speak by hearsay. So much mischief is done in the world by people repeating idle tales of which they ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... if, as you assure me, she will not make me lose your love. But what made the old gentleman get me a girl like that? Do you think he did it out of mischief?" ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... she had lost the use of her feet, had been a little wild on the subject of freedom, knew very well within that Flor would make no mischief for her; but, except for the excited state into which the news brought by some mysterious plantation runner had thrown her, she would scarcely have been so incautious. As it was, she had dropped a thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... the "systematic and sustained exertions" of the workers should spring from a more nearly perfect organization "to give efficiency to their philanthropic labors."[2] He was informed that as his society was of New England, it would on account of its origin in the wrong quarter, be productive of mischief.[3] The leading people of Baltimore thought that it would be better to accomplish this task through the Colonization Society, a southern organization carrying out the very policy which the American Union proposed ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... course. Jake assures me I've broken her heart; but I haven't. My Lady Jezebel has a heart of stone that would take something in the nature of a sledge-hammer to break. She'll buck like the mischief ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... young auctioneer was in for a serious time of it. As has been said, the would-be purchaser of a pistol was just drunk enough to be ugly and unreasonable. He had refused to leave the auction store, and now he was bent upon doing mischief to the boy who had failed to treat him as he fancied he ought ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... unconscious guest; it was here, it was there, it was nowhere; it was now so little that Herrick chid himself for an idle fancy; and anon it was so gross and palpable that you could say every hair on the man's head talked mischief. ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... peruse them; and that you return them by the very first opportunity; that so no use may be made of them that may do hurt either to the original writer or to the communicator. You'll observe I am bound by promise to this care. If through my means any mischief should arise, between this humane and that inhuman libertine, I should ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... these twenty, which Nelson with eleven now sought in vain. They did not part without a battle, but they did part without a decisive battle; they were not kept in sight afterwards; they joined and were incorporated with Napoleon's great armada; they had further wide opportunities of mischief; and there followed for the people of Great Britain a period of bitter suspense and wide-spread panic. "What a game had Villeneuve to play!" said Napoleon of those moments. "Does not the thought of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... large property have it so much in their power to bestow; at other times for the influence of fear; fear of the worst sort of power, which large property also gives to its possessor, the power of doing mischief to dependents. To confound these two, is the standing fallacy of ambiguity brought against those who seek to purify the electoral system from corruption and intimidation. Persuasive influence, acting through the conscience of the voter, and carrying his heart ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... forcing it open. There is a species of insanity that men call genius which springs from a want of intellectual harmony, without the moral and physical strength necessary to perfect development, but with this erratic mischief we have nothing to do. Mary, the reader well knows was plain in person, and as a child almost dwarfish, but wholesome food, fresh mountain air and household kindness, had modified and ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... September the last trace of illness had been removed from the premises, and it was rapidly disappearing from the face and form of the Girl. She was showing a beautiful roundness, there was lovely colour on her cheeks and lips, and in her dark eyes sparkled a touch of mischief. Rigidly she followed the rules laid down for diet and exercise, and as strength flowed through her body, and no trace of pain tormented her, she began revelling in new and delightful sensations. She loved to pull her boat as she willed, drive over the wood ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... Capting? Sure I thought it was all owin' to the bad manners o' that baste Dumps, which is for iver leadin' the other dogs into mischief." ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... weary | |of each other, and how at last everybody | |concerned was happily and sensibly | |reconciled. | | | | The spirit of the piece is sane and | |"nice," the decoration of it whimsical and| |graceful. | | | | Miss Lucille Watson, embodying the | |spirit of witty mischief, gives a very | |fine performance of the part of Mrs. | |Bayle, a "smart," good woman, and Miss | |Ruth Shepley is excellent in byplay and | |flutter as a silly, good woman. | | | | Cyril Scott is graceful ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... and probably, if there be any strong pebble-bearing surf outside, not at all. So there it all lies, festering in the sun, and cooking poison day and night; while the mangroves and graceful white roseaux {115a} (tall canes) kindly do their best to lessen the mischief, by rooting in the slush, and absorbing the poison with their leaves. A white man, sleeping one night on the edge of that pestilential little triangle, half an acre in size, would be in danger of catching a fever and ague, which would make a weaker ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... a curricle descending upon them vehemently, and a fashionably attired young gentleman straining with all his might at the reins. The next instant they were rolling on the bank. About twenty yards ahead the curricle was halted and turned about to see the extent of the mischief done. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is deep," the Justice said; "There's mighty mischief overhead." "High talk, indeed!" his wife exclaimed; "What, sir! shall Providence be blamed?" The Justice, laughing, said, "Oh no! I only meant the loads of snow Upon the roofs. The barn is weak; I ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... intense character. It was so utterly unlike a school as Jennie understood the word, that she glanced back at the group of educators with a little blush. The school was in a sort of uproar. Not that uproar of boredom and mischief of which most of us have familiar memories, but a sort of eager uproar, in which every child was intensely interested in the same thing; and did little rustling things because of this interest; something like the hum at a football game or ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... tender lambs. You have been so anxious to find the ship, and get on board, it would be cruel to suspect you of any mischief," laughed Peaks. ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... did not have their treat to Greenwich, nor did Blanche pay her visit to Fanny Bolton on that day. And Cos, who took occasion majestically to inquire of Grady what the mischief was, and who was crying?—had for answer that 'twas a woman, another of them, and that they were, in Grady's opinion, the cause of 'most all ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Many of these were a menace to the safety and the authority of the Americans. All the arms and ammunition and dynamite that could be obtained by them were hidden away. They banded together to do all the mischief possible, but our guards were too clever for the Filipinos and always detected their schemes and plots before they could be carried out. It was believed that the men inside of the city were working with the enemy ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... you suppose it was that made her laugh so," asked A.O., suspiciously. "There's always some mischief brewing when she acts that way. I don't dare leave her by herself a minute for fear she'll plot something against me. I'll have ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... will see that you don't lose any thing, if you are faithful to your duty. You must keep a sharp lookout for Passford: that's the young fellow at the wheel. He is the only one that can do any mischief, and I would not have him go near that ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... the Northern traitor, 'that very abolition has done the whole mischief. If there had been no Abolitionists, there would have been no war. The Abolitionists are responsible for it all.' Softly, poor, weak-minded man! Does not any man's common sense tell him that wherever a wrong exists, it is in the nature of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of Iloilo proves the inadequacy of the followers of Aguinaldo to do any mischief beyond bushwhacking, and it will not be found worth while to pursue the natives who made an occupation of war far into the jungles. The complete possession of the railroad by our troops will be necessary, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... right hand, and from the time she was old enough to feel herself a little older than the rest, she had helped to stitch on buttons, wash chubby faces, fasten tiny shoes, comb curly heads, keep small fingers out of mischief and small limbs from danger, and support the cause of law and order by an emphatic "don't" or "mustn't" when necessary. Patty often congratulated herself on the fact that she had taught five babies to walk. She was ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... August 17. He says: "The sailors also are so offended at his ignorant boldness in meddling and controling in things he knows not what belongs to, as that some threaten to mischief him . . . . But at best this cometh of it, that he makes himself a scorn ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... good and gracious to all, and just. That is why you must not mention Marsac's name, for he might not understand about the wicked go-between. There are shil loups, spirits of wretched people who wander about making mischief. But I must believe thee. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... said my mother. "What mischief are you plotting now? It is like old times to see you with your heads together. But, ma fe, you seem to have changed places. What trouble have you been ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... visiting drinking-places, and I had no mind to leave him, particularly as he was growing more and more bitter in my behalf against Mr. Belknap-Jackson. I had a doubtless absurd fear that he would seek the gentleman out and do him a mischief, though for the moment he was merely urging me to do this. It would, he asserted, vastly entertain the Indian Tuttle and the cow-persons if I were to come upon Mr. Belknap-Jackson and savage him without warning, or at least with only a paltry excuse, which ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... see some of the treasures unpacked. I shall, however, leave them for you finally to arrange when we all go back in June. You've seen Percy? I fancy he has been racketing rather too much with these friends of his; but I imagine Scarfe would see he went into no mischief. However, I am glad you have come back, for the boy's sake, as you understand him. This summer I think you should take him a little run in Normandy or Switzerland. It would do him good, and you, too, to knock about abroad for a week or two. However, there's ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... so—mischief! I thought I knew that knock! No one else ever takes such liberties with my office-door. What do you want now? But come in, before you forget it!" and seizing both her hands with a playful gesture, he dragged her within the door, ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... it be that one so fair as thou Should wear contention on a whiter brow Than May-day Dian's in her hunting gear? I'll not believe that eyes so holy-clear And mouth so constant to its morning prayer Could mock the mischief of a man's despair And all the misery of a moment's hope Seen far away, as mists are ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... and so on. One of the most striking illustrations is the gonococcus of gonorrhoea, whose presence in and around gives to the pus cells their virulent properties, and when transferred to the eye works such lamentable mischief. Without their existence the inoculation of pus in the healthy eye is harmless; pus bearing the gonococci excites the most intense inflammation. Similar suppurative action in the cornea is often caused by infection of cocci. The proof ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... without the palace gates nought is known of these dangerous symptoms. In such moments of agony and depression, the weary soul recalls the past, and trembles for the future. Then, in vivid colours, I placed before him the confusion and unhappiness, and infernal mischief, to which his deplorable decision must give rise; I urged the injustice he had committed, the sin that would lie at his door; and showed how, almost before his eyes had closed, the work he had achieved at peril to his soul, would sink and crumble in an ocean of blood and tears. Alcudia supported ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... quiet, obedient little girl, as a general rule; indeed, in her lonely life she had small temptation to pranks or mischief of any kind. She had often been sent to play in the back garden before, and had never thought of straying beyond its limits; but to-day a strong new feeling had been awakened by ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... darkness of the night.' What precisely does our Lord intend by His use of that metaphor of the night? No figures, we know, run upon all-fours. The point of comparison may be simply in some one feature common to the two things compared, and so all sorts of mischief may be done by trying to extend the analogy to other features. Now, there are a great many points in which day and night may respectively be taken as analogues of Life and Death and the state beyond death. There is a 'night of weeping'; there is a 'night of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... imagination could never have suggested! In this I was too daring: a man must not, for knowledge, of his own will encounter temptation! On the other hand, I had reinstated an evil force about to perish, and was, to the extent of my opposing faculty, accountable for what mischief might ensue! I had learned that she was the enemy of children: the Little Ones might be in her danger! It was in the hope of finding out something of their history that I had left them; on that I had received a little light: I must ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... palace servants, considered De Vac a loyal retainer of the house of Plantagenet. Whatever else of mischief De Vac might be up to, Brus was quite sure that in so far as the King was concerned, the key to the postern gate was as safe in De Vac's hands as though Henry himself ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... but to the southward and eastward, so that, though the current was strong, our progress towards destruction was slow, though not the less sure. Our position was already painful and dangerous enough, with a drunken, half-mad master, a mutinous crew, many of the passengers ready for any mischief, several of the officers worse than useless, and on a ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... abilities in the House of Commons, and by his knowledge in finance, of which Lord Sunderland and Craggs had betrayed their ignorance in countennancing the South Sea scheme; and who, though more agreeable to the King, had been forced to give way to Walpole, as the only man capable of repairing that mischief. The Duchess, too, might be alarmed at his attachment to the Princess of Wales; from whom, in case of the King's death, her grace could expect no favour. Of her jealousy I do know the following instance; Queen Anne had bestowed the rangership of Richmond New Park on her relations the Hydes ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... hand in that. She was afraid I knew something. So I did. But she didn't dream how much I knew. If she had there would have been a second attempt of that sort minus the escape. Then the armistice came to cool our passions, and Liane found other things to think about ... God knows what other mischief to do in time ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... same roof, till a certain reconciliation shall take place, which is of high consequence to both.' And further that I might convince you of the purity of my intentions, and that my whole view in this was to prevent mischief, I have acquainted them, 'that I have solemnly promised to behave to you before every body, as if we were only betrothed, and not married; not even offering to take any of those innocent freedoms which are not refused in the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... had got back," she went on, her face uplifted, her friendly fingers tightening on his. "That old mischief-maker told me. I didn't come out here after the cow. That was just a dodge to keep anybody from talking about me being away from home after dark. I had to see you. I knew you needed a friend, and I'm one, Alfred—I'd sacrifice anything on earth to help you. You've been a true friend to me, and ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... misadventure be not buzz'd abroad, Where 't may breed mutiny and mischief. Say We've left the captain waiting our return, Safe with the other three; meantime, choose out Some certain trusty fellows, who will swear Bravely to find their captain ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... ignorance, Edmund? You know well enough it is that odious Wenlock, your enemy and my aversion, that has caused all this mischief among us, and will much more, if he ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... rope exerted all my might, as though I had been performing before kings. After all, there is no applause that so flatters a man as that which he wrings from unwilling throats, and I know Orte had been long set against me by reason of my boyish mischief and my flight. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Tarboe. "But, see," said Joan. "If we chase them and call upon them to surrender—and after all, we can prove that we had nothing contraband—what a splendid game it'll be!" Mischief flicked ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it. As long as the organism is familiar with the position, and remembers its antecedents, nothing can assimilate it. It must be first dislodged from the position with which it is familiar, as being able to remember it, before mischief can happen to it. Nothing can ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... a taxi, the man told him. He began to look rather alarmed; there was something in Jimmy's white face and burning eyes that meant mischief, he thought. He told the "Boots" afterwards: "We shall hear more of ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... free to inform the musician of their promise or not, as he pleased. It would make no difference, they had said; henceforth Don Alberto should be watched continually, as a mouse is watched by a cat, or in fact by two cats; at the very first intimation that he meant mischief, they would send him to the permanent future abode of all mischief-makers; and as for the consequences of their action, if they were ever detected, they would take such a trifle as that upon themselves. Don Alberto might be the nephew of all the popes and anti-popes ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... man said, "What are you after now?" and the Lion asked if he had seen Ananzi pass that way, but the old man said, "No, that fellow Ananzi is always meddling with some one; what mischief has ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... revelation upon us no longer binding. He himself has given us, in the Sermon on the Mount, the method by which we are to test the older Scriptures. When we refuse to apply his method and go on to declare every portion of those old records authoritative, we are not honoring him. The mischief and bane of the traditional theory is that it equalizes things which are utterly unlike. When it says that "all the books of the Scripture are equally inspired; all alike are infallible in what they teach," it puts the Gospels on ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... his prosperous mischief—no real fanatic can look better pleased after a successful sermon ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... and subdued at being convicted of all the mischief which she had so persistently charged to her husband. And she said this to him with her arms in a very unusual position—that is, around ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... the evil goes on in other arts as well as orthography. Places are confounded, as well for want of proper distinctions, as things for want of true characters. Had I not come by the other day very early in the morning, there might have been mischief done; for a worthy North Briton was swearing at Stocks Market,[220] that they would not let him in at his lodgings; but I knowing the gentleman, and observing him look often at the King on horseback, and then double his oaths, that he was sure he was right, found ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... officers and gentlemen were only striving to be civil to him, he might 'go ahead and be d—d,' and came away in high dudgeon." And so matters stood up to the last we had heard from Fort Phoenix, except for one letter which Mrs. Frazer wrote to Mrs. Turner at Sandy, perhaps purely out of feminine mischief, because a year or so previous Baker, as a junior second lieutenant, was doing the devoted to Mrs. Turner, a species of mildly amatory apprenticeship which most of the young officers seemed impelled to serve on first joining. "We ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the center of the ring of pirates. Captain Glenn's hands, in his pockets, grasped his revolvers firmly. The American sea captain was determined not to be caught off his guard. He was perfectly certain in his own mind that Captain Jack was bent on mischief. ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... door. "They say that fellow's a Socialist. I think it's a shame they're allowed to come here. If they don't like the way we manage our affairs let 'em stay at home," Fulkerson continued. "They do a lot of mischief, shooting off their mouths round here. I believe in free speech and all that; but I'd like to see these fellows shut up in jail and left to jaw one another to death. We don't want ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... effects of the close work room. Her constitution was much impaired. The wines and cordials she had accustomed herself to take to support nature, as she thought, under these fatigues, had increased the mischief the wounds would not heal as they ought; contusions would not disperse; the internal injury in the chest began to assume a very threatening appearance. Mr. L. came to the assistance of the young surgeon repeatedly—all ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... detective was too wise to let his zeal for the wealthy Englishman outrun discretion. He did very little in the case, and brought back a distinct opinion that Grosse could, at present, do nothing but mischief by interference. Madame Danterre had always lived a very retired life, and was either a real invalid or a valetudinarian. Her great, her enormous accession of wealth had only been used apparently in the sacred cause of bodily health. She ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... steep hill, and upset the hay and broke the cart. Oh, such a time! It was worse than the candy scrape; for the man swore, and the horse was hurt, and people said the monkey ought to be shot, he did so much mischief. Jocko didn't care a bit; he sat high up in a tree, and chattered and scolded, and swung by his tail, and was so droll that people couldn't help laughing at him. Poor Neddy cried again, and went home to tell his troubles to Aunt Jane, fearing that it would take ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... Some, full of mischief, and at times unfortunately full of rum, used to come to annoy and disturb us. One summer a band of Athabasca Indians so attacked our Mission House that for three days and nights we were as in a state of siege. Unfortunately for us our own loyal able-bodied Indian men were all away ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Congress, and force an acquiescence in the treaty. "It was the fear of being involved in a war," he said, "that the negotiations with Great Britain had originated; under the impression of fear the treaty had been negotiated and signed; fear had promoted its ratification; and now, every imaginary mischief was conjured up to frighten the house, to deprive it of that discretion which it had the right to exercise, to force it to carry this treaty into effect." He also charged the merchants of Philadelphia and other seaports[94] with having formed a combination to produce alarm, and to ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... manifesting her reluctance by odd grimaces; of which, ever since her babyhood, she had possessed a singular variety, and could transform her mobile physiognomy into a series of different aspects, with a new mischief in them, each and all. The minister—painfully embarrassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a talisman to admit him into the child's kindlier regards—bent forward, and impressed one on her brow. ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Donatists was confined to Africa: the more diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former was an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from the abuse of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to that of Clovis ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... reason to need such treatment. But he said that when I came at Easter, we may have a mason and knock a hole wherever we choose. Messing about in the cellar is a harmless amusement that may keep us out of mischief and provide employment for some deserving workman. Before that date, I trust you will succeed in getting Uncle Dick into a less doubting frame of mind. Easter is but a month away and if all goes well, I'll surely be ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... and shouted when it cracked. I was on them, into them, and they broke back, being over-pressed. But Beeswing was a bred stock-horse, she knew the game and loved it. Back she swung right upon her haunches, and was away upon the hunt after a great raking mare called Mischief. We galloped almost side by side, and then Mischief quailed and turned coward. As Beeswing swung again I brought the whip ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... Hojo interpreters of Go-Saga's testament, looked for greater personal advantage when the Crown should come to the Southern branch than anything that could be hoped for by submitting to the Northern. They were mistaken. That testament, which had done so much mischief in its time, was ignored from the close of the War of the Dynasties. It did not fall into total abeyance, however, without some further bloodshed, and the facts may be interpolated here so as to dispose finally ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... view of the case. The Camellia Buds had fixed the mischief so certainly on the rival sorority that they had never thought of the younger girls. Peachy, catching Olive, Doris, and Natalie, the trio whom she had named her "triplets," taxed them solemnly with the crime. They burst ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... intermarried blacks and whites devastated, and a bonfire made in the street with their furniture, I had but little apprehension of personal violence, and the boss protested that he would 'see me righted,' should any mischief befall. So it went on for a few days longer, when a second deputation waited upon me, and, less ceremonious than the first, they rushed noisily, and without notice, up the stairs, and crowded into my bench-room. There ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... recognized in the person of Roderic O'Connor, and in the Irish through him, the chief rights of sovereignty over the whole island, except Leinster and, perhaps, Meath. But, at the same time, a passage or two in the treaty concealed a meaning certainly unperceived by the Irish, but fraught with mischief and ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... them; for they deserted their camp, which was three hundred yards from ours, in a great hurry, leaving, among other articles, a small net full of potatoes, which Charley afterwards picked up. The gins had previously retired; a proof that mischief was intended. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... there is the mischief, when men like you repeat such calumnies, which, without that, would melt away like the unwholesome vapors which sometimes obscure the most brilliant sunshine; but people like you, repeating them, give them a terrible stability. Oh! monsieur, for mercy's sake ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... their own arrogance, hardly thinking themselves possessed of power unless they let each man see for a long time how powerful they are. They do nothing promptly, or at one sitting; they are indeed swift to do mischief, but slow to do good. Be sure that the comic poet speaks the most ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... you two boys to keep out of mischief," put in Tom Rover, addressing his twins. "Of course, you can have all the fun you please, but let it be good, innocent nonsense. Don't do anything mean, and don't do anything to get somebody ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... satisfied, having lost one of her best men, with more fury than conduct moved about, and did much mischief among their enemies. The silvered party warily dissembled, watching their opportunity to be even with them, and presented one of their nymphs to the golden queen, having laid an ambuscado; so that the nymph being taken, a golden archer had like to ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... he whored the sea as well say of Epicurus that he basely and covertly forces and ravishes Fame, by not enjoying her publicly but ruffling and debauching her in a corner? For as men's bodies are oft necessitated by famine, for want of other food, to prey against nature upon themselves, a like mischief to this does vainglory create in men's minds, forcing them, when they hunger after praise and cannot obtain it from other men, at last ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Rappahannock and the Potomac lies a vast territory which abounds in creeks, marshes, deep, dark forests, with only here and there a village or settlement. A little to the west of this plain extend the Bull Run Mountains, with their ravines and caverns. This is a very fit hiding-place for mischief-makers. The guerillas consist mostly of farmers and mechanics, residents of this region, who, by some means, are exempt from the Rebel conscription. Most of them follow their usual avocations daring the day, and have their rendezvous ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... over before he can work more mischief," said a voice. But the captain cried out, "Nay, nay, he is sacred; the fire from Heaven has fallen on his brain, and we may not harm him, else evil would overtake us all. Bind him hand and foot, and bear him tenderly to where he can be cared for. Surely I thought that ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... able to do it, let their general character be what it might. The rank and file of the patricians, proud, idle, vicious, and self-indulgent, might be left to their mistresses and their gaming-tables. They could do no mischief unless they had leaders at their head who could use their resources more effectively than they could do themselves. There were two men only in Rome with whose help they could be really dangerous—Cato, because he was a fanatic, impregnable to argument, and not to be influenced by temptation ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... of the criminal law, but to explain its general theory, I shall only consider such offences as throw some special light upon the subject, and shall treat of those in such order as seems best fitted for that purpose. It will now be useful to take up malicious mischief, and to compare the malice required to constitute that offence with the ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... Greek council, centuries old, called the Amphictyonic. It met twice every year, usually for religious purposes, rarely for political. But in the time we have now reached this Amphictyonic Council ventured to meddle in politics, and made mischief of the direst character. Its first political act was to fine Sparta five hundred talents for seizing the citadel of Thebes in times of peace. The fine was to be doubled if not paid within a certain time. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... (in drink) that we were obliged to tie him with ropes to prevent his doing mischief. He was stabbed in the back in three different places about a month ago. His wounds were still open, and had an ugly appearance; in his struggling to get loose they burst out afresh and bled a great deal. We had much trouble to stop the blood, as the fellow was insensible to pain or danger; ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... he is nearly the first writer to do this, and that his writings were (and were deservedly) the favourite study of generous literary youth for more than a generation, it is scarcely uncharitable to hold him directly responsible for much mischief. The faults of Euphues were faults which were certain to work their own cure; those of the Arcadia were so engaging in themselves, and linked with so many merits and beauties, that they were sure to set a dangerous example. I believe, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Rabbit at last, "I have some important business to attend to this morning, so I will say goodby." And she gave Grandmother Mischief, as she was often called, such a stiff bow that the old lady magpie stopped short and let them ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... "'Responsible! the meikle mischief!' I exclaimed; 'what am I responsible for, sir?—I only put my name doun to oblige him, I tell ye! For what am ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... Maudsley remarks ('Body and Mind,' p. 10) that "reflex movements which commonly effect a useful end may, under the changed circumstances of disease, do great mischief, becoming even the occasion of violent suffering and ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... of us in all—those I have enumerated, and Algy. Yes, he is here. Bellona is a goddess who can always spare her sons when there is any chance of their getting into mischief. Roger has taken Mrs. Huntley. That, poor man, he could hardly help, his only alternative being his own sister-in-law. Musgrave has taken Barbara. He is still as white as the table-cloth, and hardly ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... daughter of the Principal, not the slightest partiality was ever shown her and she was obliged to conform as strictly to the rules as any girl in the school. She was full of fun, eternally in harmless mischief, and, of course, eternally being taken to task for ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... that plays my face around, Murmuring sweet mischief through the verdant grove, To fond remembrance brings the time, when Love First gave his deep, although delightful wound; Gave me to view that beauteous face, ne'er found Veil'd, as disdain or jealousy might move; To view her locks that shone bright gold above, Then loose, but now with ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... from home life will illustrate the point involved. A quinine capsule was lying on the table. A three-year-old boy reached for it. His mother called across the room, "Don't eat that, dearie, it isn't candy." But in a spirit of reckless mischief he hurried it into his mouth and quickly chewed it up! It was a very disagreeable but salutary lesson for the little fellow. It is an example of nature's methods. She is always consistent, and has a balanced relationship between cause and ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... as you're in this house, there's mischief and bad blood in it, upon my soul there is! Come along and see your bedroom. (She seizes Fel. by the arm, and takes her up the steps into the house, pushing her in front of her ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... "You—miserable—old—mischief-maker" he muttered slowly, and with hate and emphasis in every word. "You're tellin' him to see me for information concernin' Bob McGraw, ain't you? You're tellin' him this road agent's a friend o' mine, because I called for a ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... this the History of the Universe would have to be rewritten, or that odd fortnight would play the mischief somewhere! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... amazed that a cheerful young man should be one of them. I believe I thought it was a little dangerous. I thought such young men could not manage the Bank well. I feared they had the power to do mischief. ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... of mischief was entirely successful, for there was a clatter upon George's plate. "What—what do you think ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... boat had been carried out to sea and that our little maid was lost," said Aunt Martha, "and the men have looked for you all about the shore. The 'Somerset' is in harbor and its crew are doing much mischief on shore, so that we have had much to disturb us. What a tangle of hair this is for me to brush out," she added, passing a tender ...
— A Little Maid of Province Town • Alice Turner Curtis
... departed, bearing the robe. But after no long time the Queen ran forth from the palace in great fear, wringing her hands, and crying to the maidens, her companions, that she was sore afraid lest in ignorance she had done some great mischief. And when they would know the cause of her grief and fear, she spake, saying, "A very marvellous and terrible thing hath befallen me. There was a morsel of sheep's wool which I dipped into the charm, even the blood of the Centaur, that I ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church
... that the pretension to infallibility, by whomsoever made, has done endless mischief; with impartial malignity it has proved a curse, alike to those who have made it and those who have accepted it; and its most baneful shape is book infallibility. For sacerdotal corporations and schools of philosophy are able, ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... thought, "We give our dear young ones less food than we ought; We may be impatient; I have really some fears That we rock them too little, the poor little dears; Our milk may cause fever, and their stomachs not suit, Or perhaps they are weakened and injured by fruit. Perhaps the whole mischief is caused by the air, And who 'gainst this evil can ever prepare? In their earliest years, it may poison instil, And through their whole lifetime produce every ill. Perhaps it may be, before we are aware, They breathe in a pestilence, borne on the air. Perhaps, for the ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... drew near, a dancing imp of mischief in her eyes. She wanted to get a glimpse of the work of art that he was elaborating with such care before he discovered her. But his sensibilities were too subtle for her. Quite suddenly he became aware ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... bandaging another and generally doing what was possible. There was one man, however, who groaned loudly and held a cloth over his face as if he were dying. On lifting this covering, I found him to be a certain mason called Karim Bux, who was well known to me as a prime mischief-maker among the men. I examined him carefully, but as I could discover nothing amiss, I concluded that he must have received some internal injury, and accordingly told him that I would send him to the hospital at Voi (about thirty miles down the ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... scoundrel! I do not say that. (Aside) I am furious! (Aloud) I only ask if out of mischief you do not spread abroad the report that I ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... forward. Herbert had behaved very fairly well ever since the escapade of the pied rook; the lad kept his promise as to betting faithfully in his uncle's absence, and though it had not been renewed, he had learnt enough good sense to keep out of mischief. ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of these pranks, or she would feel as you do; and I hope every one here will be kind enough not to tell her. It would only be making her anxious to no purpose, whenever the boy is out of her sight. It would be a pity to make a coward of him; and I think I can teach him what is mischief, and what is not, without disturbing her. Come, ladies, suppose you rest yourselves here; you will find a pleasant seat on this bank: at least, I fell asleep on it just now, as if I had been on ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau |
